The Ego and His Own Part 11

The commonalty had _thrown open_ spiritual and material goods, and left it with each one to reach out for them if he liked.

Communism really procures them for each one, presses them upon him, and compels him to acquire them. It takes seriously the idea that, because only spiritual and material goods make us men, we must unquestionably acquire these goods in order to be man. The commonalty made acquisition free; Communism _compels_ to acquisition, and recognizes only the acquirer, him who practises a trade. It is not enough that the trade is free, but you must _take it up_.

So all that is left for criticism to do is to prove that the acquisition of these goods does not yet by any means make us men.

With the liberal commandment that every one is to make a man of himself, or every one to make himself man, there was posited the necessity that every one must gain time for this labor of humanization, _i. e._ that it should become possible for every one to labor on _himself_.

The commonalty thought it had brought this about if it handed over everything human to compet.i.tion, but gave the individual a right to every human thing. "Each may strive after everything!"

Social liberalism finds that the matter is not settled with the "may,"

because may means only "it is forbidden to none" but not "it is made possible to every one." Hence it affirms that the commonalty is liberal only with the mouth and in words, supremely illiberal in act. It on its part wants to give all of us the _means_ to be able to labor on ourselves.

By the principle of labor that of fortune or compet.i.tion is certainly outdone. But at the same time the laborer, in his consciousness that the essential thing in him is "the laborer," holds himself aloof from egoism and subjects himself to the supremacy of a society of laborers, as the commoner clung with self-abandonment to the compet.i.tion-State. The beautiful dream of a "social duty" still continues to be dreamed. People think again that society _gives_ what we need, and we are _under obligations_ to it on that account, owe it everything.[82] They are still at the point of wanting to _serve_ a "supreme giver of all good."

That society is no ego at all, which could give, bestow, or grant, but an instrument or means, from which we may derive benefit; that we have no social duties, but solely interests for the pursuance of which society must serve us; that we owe society no sacrifice, but, if we sacrifice anything, sacrifice it to ourselves,--of this the Socialists do not think, because they--as liberals--are imprisoned in the religious principle, and zealously aspire after--a sacred society, such as the State was. .h.i.therto.

Society, from which we have everything, is a new master, a new spook, a new "supreme being," which "takes us into its service and allegiance"!

The more precise appreciation of political as well as social liberalism must wait to find its place further on. For the present we pa.s.s this over, in order first to summon them before the tribunal of humane or critical liberalism.

-- 3.--HUMANE LIBERALISM

As liberalism is completed in self-criticising, "critical"[83]

liberalism, in which the critic remains a liberal and does not go beyond the principle of liberalism, Man,--this may distinctively be named after Man and called the "humane."

The laborer is counted as the most material and egoistical man. He does nothing at all _for humanity_, does everything for _himself_, for his welfare.

The commonalty, because it proclaimed the freedom of _Man_ only as to his birth, had to leave him in the claws of the un-human man (the egoist) for the rest of life. Hence under the _regime_ of political liberalism egoism has an immense field for free utilization.

The laborer will _utilize_ society for his _egoistic_ ends as the commoner does the State. You have only an egoistic end after all, your welfare! is the humane liberal's reproach to the Socialist; take up a _purely human interest_, then I will be your companion. "But to this there belongs a consciousness stronger, more comprehensive, than a _laborer-consciousness_." "The laborer makes nothing, therefore he has nothing; but he makes nothing because his labor is always a labor that remains individual, calculated strictly for his own want, a labor day by day."[84] In opposition to this one might, for instance, consider the fact that Gutenberg's labor did not remain individual, but begot innumerable children, and still lives to-day; it was calculated for the want of humanity, and was an eternal, imperishable labor.

The humane consciousness despises the commoner-consciousness as well as the laborer-consciousness: for the commoner is "indignant" only at vagabonds (at all who have "no definite occupation") and their "immorality"; the laborer is "disgusted" by the _idler_ ("lazybones") and his "immoral," because parasitic and unsocial, principles. To this the humane liberal retorts: The unsettledness of many is only your product, Philistine! But that you, proletarian, demand the _grind_ of all, and want to make _drudgery_ general, is a part, still clinging to you, of your pack-mule life up to this time. Certainly you want to lighten drudgery itself by _all_ having to drudge equally hard, yet only for this reason, that all may gain _leisure_ to an equal extent. But what are they to do with their leisure? What does your "society" do, that this leisure may be pa.s.sed _humanly_? It must leave the gained leisure to egoistic preference again, and the very _gain_ that your society furthers falls to the egoist, as the gain of the commonalty, the _masterlessness of man_, could not be filled with a human element by the State, and therefore was left to arbitrary choice.

It is a.s.suredly necessary that man be masterless: but therefore the egoist is not to become master over man again either, but man over the egoist. Man must a.s.suredly find leisure: but, if the egoist makes use of it, it will be lost for man; therefore you ought to have given leisure a human significance. But you laborers undertake even your labor from an egoistic impulse, because you want to eat, drink, live; how should you be less egoists in leisure? You labor only because having your time to yourselves (idling) goes well after work done, and what you are to while away your leisure time with is left to _chance_.

But, if every door is to be bolted against egoism, it would be necessary to strive after completely "disinterested" action, _total_ disinterestedness. This alone is human, because only Man is disinterested, the egoist always interested.

If we let disinterestedness pa.s.s unchallenged for a while, then we ask, do you mean not to take an interest in anything, not to be enthusiastic for anything, not for liberty, humanity, etc.? "Oh, yes, but that is not an egoistic interest, not _interestedness_, but a human, _i. e._ a--_theoretical_ interest, to wit, an interest not for an individual or individuals ('all'), but for the _idea_, for Man!"

And you do not notice that you too are enthusiastic only for _your_ idea, _your_ idea of liberty?

And, further, do you not notice that your disinterestedness is again, like religious disinterestedness, a heavenly interestedness? Certainly benefit to the individual leaves you cold, and abstractly you could cry _fiat libertas, pereat mundus_. You do not take thought for the coming day either, and take no serious care for the individual's wants anyhow, not for your own comfort nor for that of the rest; but you make nothing of all this, because you are a--dreamer.

Do you suppose the humane liberal will be so liberal as to aver that everything possible to man is _human_? On the contrary! He does not, indeed, share the Philistine's moral prejudice about the strumpet, but "that this woman turns her body into a money-getting machine"[85] makes her despicable to him as "human being." His judgment is, The strumpet is not a human being; or, So far as a woman is a strumpet, so far is she unhuman, dehumanized. Further: The Jew, the Christian, the privileged person, the theologian, etc., is not a human being; so far as you are a Jew, etc., you are not a human being. Again the imperious postulate: Cast from you everything peculiar, criticise it away! Be not a Jew, not a Christian, etc., but be a human being, nothing but a human being.

a.s.sert your _humanity_ against every restrictive specification; make yourself, by means of it, a human being, and _free_ from those limits; make yourself a "free man," _i. e._ recognize humanity as your all-determining essence.

I say: You are indeed more than a Jew, more than a Christian, etc., but you are also more than a human being. Those are all ideas, but you are corporeal. Do you suppose, then, that you can ever become "a human being as such"? Do you suppose our posterity will find no prejudices and limits to clear away, for which our powers were not sufficient? Or do you perhaps think that in your fortieth or fiftieth year you have come so far that the following days have nothing more to dissipate in you, and that you are a human being? The men of the future will yet fight their way to many a liberty that we do not even miss. What do you need that later liberty for? If you meant to esteem yourself as nothing before you had become a human being, you would have to wait till the "last judgment," till the day when man, or humanity, shall have attained perfection. But, as you will surely die before that, what becomes of your prize of victory?

Rather, therefore, invert the case, and say to yourself, _I am a human being_! I do not need to begin by producing the human being in myself, for he belongs to me already, like all my qualities.

But, asks the critic, how can one be a Jew and a man at once? In the first place, I answer, one cannot be either a Jew or a man at all, if "one" and Jew or man are to mean the same; "one" always reaches beyond those specifications, and,--let Isaacs be ever so Jewish,--a Jew, nothing but a Jew, he cannot be, just because he is _this_ Jew. In the second place, as a Jew one a.s.suredly cannot be a man, if being a man means being nothing special. But in the third place--and this is the point--I can, as a Jew, be entirely what I--_can_ be. From Samuel or Moses, and others, you hardly expect that they should have raised themselves above Judaism, although you must say that they were not yet "men." They simply were what they could be. Is it otherwise with the Jews of to-day? Because you have discovered the idea of humanity, does it follow from this that every Jew can become a convert to it? If he can, he does not fail to, and, if he fails to, he--cannot. What does your demand concern him? what the _call_ to be a man, which you address to him?

As a universal principle, in the "human society" which the humane liberal promises, nothing "special" which one or another has is to find recognition, nothing which bears the character of "private" is to have value. In this way the circle of liberalism, which has its good principle in man and human liberty, its bad in the egoist and everything private, its G.o.d in the former, its devil in the latter, rounds itself off completely; and, if the special or private person lost his value in the State (no personal prerogative), if in the "laborers' or ragam.u.f.fins' society" special (private) property is no longer recognized, so in "human society" everything special or private will be left out of account; and, when "pure criticism" shall have accomplished its arduous task, then it will be known just what we must look upon as private, and what, "penetrated with a sense of our nothingness," we must--let stand.

Because State and society do not suffice for humane liberalism, it negates both, and at the same time retains them. So at one time the cry is that the task of the day is "not a political, but a social, one," and then again the "free State" is promised for the future. In truth, "human society" is both,--the most general State and the most general society.

Only against the limited State is it a.s.serted that it makes too much stir about spiritual private interests (_e. g._ people's religious belief), and against limited society that it makes too much of material private interests. Both are to leave private interests to private people, and, as human society, concern themselves solely about general human interests.

The politicians, thinking to abolish _personal will_, self-will or arbitrariness, did not observe that through _property_[86] our _self-will_[87] gained a secure place of refuge.

The Socialists, taking away _property_ too, do not notice that this secures itself a continued existence in _self-owners.h.i.+p_. Is it only money and goods, then, that are a property, or is every opinion something of mine, something of my own?

So every _opinion_ must be abolished or made impersonal. The person is ent.i.tled to no opinion, but, as self-will was transferred to the State, property to society, so opinion too must be transferred to something _general_, "Man," and thereby become a general human opinion.

If opinion persists, then I have _my_ G.o.d (why, G.o.d exists only as "my G.o.d," he is an opinion or my "faith"), and consequently _my_ faith, my religion, my thoughts, my ideals. Therefore a general human faith must come into existence, the "_fanaticism of liberty_." For this would be a faith that agreed with the "essence of man," and, because only "man" is reasonable (you and I might be very unreasonable!), a reasonable faith.

As self-will and property become _powerless_, so must self-owners.h.i.+p or egoism in general.

In this supreme development of "free man" egoism, self-owners.h.i.+p, is combated on principle, and such subordinate ends as the social "welfare"

of the Socialists, etc., vanish before the lofty "idea of humanity."

Everything that is not a "general human" ent.i.ty is something separate, satisfies only some or one; or, if it satisfies all, it does this to them only as individuals, not as men, and is therefore called "egoistic."

To the Socialists _welfare_ is still the supreme aim, as free _rivalry_ was the approved thing to the political liberals; now welfare is free too, and we are free to achieve welfare, just as he who wanted to enter into rivalry (compet.i.tion) was free to do so.

But to take part in the rivalry you need only to be _commoners_; to take part in the welfare, only to be _laborers_. Neither reaches the point of being synonymous with "man." It is "truly well" with man only when he is also "intellectually free"! For man is mind: therefore all powers that are alien to him, the mind,--all superhuman, heavenly, unhuman powers,--must be overthrown, and the name "man" must be above every name.

So in this end of the modern age (age of the moderns) there returns again, as the main point, what had been the main point at its beginning: "intellectual liberty."

To the Communist in particular the humane liberal says: If society prescribes to you your activity, then this is indeed free from the influence of the individual, _i. e._ the egoist, but it still does not on that account need to be a _purely human_ activity, nor you to be a complete organ of humanity. What kind of activity society demands of you remains _accidental_, you know; it might give you a place in building a temple or something of that sort, or, even if not that, you might yet on your own impulse be active for something foolish, therefore unhuman; yes, more yet, you really labor only to nourish yourself, in general to live, for dear life's sake, not for the glorification of humanity.

Consequently free activity is not attained till you make yourself free from all stupidities, from everything non-human, _i. e_. egoistic (pertaining only to the individual, not to the Man in the individual), dissipate all untrue thoughts that obscure man or the idea of humanity: in short, when you are not merely unhampered in your activity, but the substance too of your activity is only what is human, and you live and work only for humanity. But this is not the case so long as the aim of your effort is only your _welfare_ and that of all; what you do for the society of ragam.u.f.fins is not yet anything done for "human society."

Laboring does not alone make you a man, because it is something formal and its object accidental; the question is who you that labor are. As far as laboring goes, you might do it from an egoistic (material) impulse, merely to procure nourishment and the like; it must be a labor furthering humanity, calculated for the good of humanity, serving historical (_i. e._ human) evolution,--in short, a _humane_ labor. This implies two things: one, that it be useful to humanity; next, that it be the work of a "man." The first alone may be the case with every labor, as even the labors of nature, _e. g._ of animals, are utilized by humanity for the furthering of science, etc.; the second requires that he who labors should know the human object of his labor; and, as he can have this consciousness only when he _knows himself as man_, the crucial condition is--_self-consciousness_.

Unquestionably much is already attained when you cease to be a "fragment-laborer,"[88] yet therewith you only get a view of the whole of your labor, and acquire a consciousness about it, which is still far removed from a self-consciousness, a consciousness about your true "self" or "essence," Man. The laborer has still remaining the desire for a "higher consciousness," which, because the activity of labor is unable to quiet it, he satisfies in a leisure hour. Hence leisure stands by the side of his labor, and he sees himself compelled to proclaim labor and idling human in one breath, yes, to attribute the true elevation to the idler, the leisure-enjoyer. He labors only to get rid of labor; he wants to make labor free, only that he may be free from labor.

In fine, his work has no satisfying substance, because it is only imposed by society, only a stint, a task, a calling; and, conversely, his society does not satisfy, because it gives only work.

His labor ought to satisfy him as a man; instead of that, it satisfies society; society ought to treat him as a man, and it treats him as--a rag-tag laborer, or a laboring ragam.u.f.fin.

Labor and society are of use to him not as he needs them as a man, but only as he needs them as an "egoist."

Such is the att.i.tude of criticism toward labor. It points to "mind,"

wages the war "of mind with the ma.s.ses,"[89] and p.r.o.nounces communistic labor unintellectual ma.s.s-labor. Averse to labor as they are, the ma.s.ses love to make labor easy for themselves. In literature, which is to-day furnished in ma.s.s, this aversion to labor begets the universally-known _superficiality_, which puts from it "the toil of research."[90]

Therefore humane liberalism says: You want labor; all right, we want it likewise, but we want it in the fullest measure. We want it, not that we may gain spare time, but that we may find all satisfaction in it itself.

We want labor because it is our self-development.